Jigsaw: Let the Games Begin — Part 5 of 8

I’ve had seven years to solidify my opinion on the ranking of the first seven SAW films. With just under one month until the franchise’s return, I continue with the sixth film in the franchise. And ending with a relatively hot take of the newest film.

This series will summarize each movie’s plot / interesting points, with some commentary about why it’s silly or cool, etc.

Continuing the countdown of SAW movies, much like a clock ticking down in one of the many gruesome traps in the series, we head into SAW VI, the surprisingly decent yet commercially not quite as successful as Lionsgate wanted, entry that hacked away at the number of movies left by canceling SAW VIII.

Obama. Didn’t think I’d start any entry in this SAW retrospective with the wonderful 44th but… I also didn’t think we’d get a SAW sequel talking about the healthcare industry in the US, so here we are.

SAW VI is a weird film in many ways — it’s the first SAW since the original where the main “victim” is actually smart and generally level-headed. It’s also the first time in awhile the victim has been directly tied to the worsening brain tumor of the now dead Jigsaw. It’s also somehow manages to be a decent film but still manages to satiate the “bigger, bloodier, more fucked up” mentality of the sequel train’s approach to violence. This film is violent.

I saw a joke once. Or maybe it was a review, I can’t remember. The joke was about how far these films have moved from their original incarnation.

The tension of the original movie is about whether Dr. Gordon (or Adam) will saw his leg off to escape.

In SAW VI, a women doesn’t even blink and just hacks her arm off to survive minutes into the movie.

It was telling — these films are more focused on the Rube Goldberg Death Traps. They have created a vastly complicated web of narrative threads to tug at, but these all are secondary to the marketing machine of “WE HAVE THE MOST VIOLENCE OF ALL THE MOVIES” that Lionsgate plays at for Halloween.

And fuck they’re right. James Wan has often said these films aren’t like what the original film was meant to be. He sometimes seems to lament the iconic imagery of Amanda in the infamous Reverse Bear trap — SAW is a violent film, a disturbing film… but it’s not nearly as violent as people remember. There is very little gore. Very little blood shed. I’ll talk more about this when I get to that movie but… it’s a disturbing movie that makes you think it’s more violent than it is.

SAW VI has lots of traps, surprise surprise. I mentioned we have a smart victim. He is, he’s also a shark. He runs a Health Insurance agency. In fact, he denied Jigsaw (well, John Kramer back then) the option to seek experimental treatment. There’s a scene where basically signs a family’s dying father’s death sentence. It’s obtuse but, it’s also in the early days of the Obama presidency, and pointing out… AMERICAN HEALTH CARE IS FUCKED UP.

Anyways, his tests are all about cost and efficiency kind of things versus the morality of putting a bottom line above a life. His first test is something involving a chronic smoker and involves breathing or something (I don’t honestly remember, and haven’t gotten to do my pre-Jigsaw marathon yet, forgive me). He survives, because it’s the first trap and the only thing more surprising than why this character dies would be if he wasn’t even to make it to the end.

There’s a trap where he literally has to choose who lives and who dies. That’s the next one. After that he (William, I remember his name now) guides someone through a deadly maze (lots of hot steam) and has to save them before they get impaled or something due to a device attached to them.

The last actual trap that involves any effort on William’s part is the shotgun carousel. Now he’s tasked with dealing about a bunch of vicious insurance agents from his company trapped to a carousel with shotguns ready to blow their heads off. It’s gross, intensely telling about just how vicious people can be when pitted against each other for a “prize” (in this case the chance to live) and one of the few times later movies have a trap that almost … earns the level of violence it wants to show?

Oh, meanwhile there’s another trap. Two people trapped in a cage. They’re watching William as he undergoes his tests.

This is William’s final test. Except not … really. It’s like if his test was based on something he had no immediate direct input over in the moment. Like, let’s say I handed you an exam and said “10 years ago you solved a math equation that resulted in X = 2.678. What was the equation and how did you solve it.”

Maybe not the best metaphor. The people in the cage? Being forced to watch? They’re the wife and son of the man William signed the death warrant for (to use some dramatic flair). Their test is to judge if William has learned the value of others lives.

This is the best, and worst moment in the film’s victim plot.

Williams is the best victim in years due simply to the fact that he actually starts to realize he’s done some bad shit. He actually is ready to change and the weight of these in your face death traps immediately hang on him. He’d likely walk out a changed (albeit traumatized) man.

Except he doesn’t get to. His final test is beg for forgiveness and the young man, in honestly, one of the worst acted scenes in the entire series (Leigh Whannel’s role of Adam be damned) the boys just kills him and awkwardly screams “YOU KILLED MY DAD MOTHER FUCKER” before pulling a lever that kills William by having a surprise guillotine of acidic syringes stab him and dissolve his entire body. The mom just kinda goes “oh my fucking god you did not.” even though she’s unsure herself.

So yeah, William — the first capable, changing protagonist in a long while gets fucked over for the sake of gross shit.

But while that leaves a bad aftertaste, there’s still the whole other “Detective Hoffman aka Jigsaw Hoffman aka Rogue Jigsaw” thing. Remember, he eliminated Detective Strahm in SAW V. Now, it’s gonna get really complicated.

The scene from the start (and end) of SAW IV? That doesn’t happen until after SAW V? It finally happens… at some point early in this movie. So we know a few things — Jigsaw’s ready to come for Hoffman and figured this would happen. But Jigsaw’s not the only one with an ace in the hole. Maybe.

In SAW IV we presume Agent Perez, Strahm’s partner, is dead or comatose, or ya know… something that renders her out of the picture after she gets a faceful of shards from a bomb.

Surprise motherfuckers! She’s still alive. And she’s keenly aware something about Hoffman’s stories isn’t adding up. Hoffman, certainly, is surprised.

The FBI ends up being kind of useless but it does up the stakes towards the end of the movie, for Hoffman at least. We’ll return to that.

Jill, Jigsaw’s estranged ex-wife is apparently even more keyed in on his work than SAW IV or V let us think. Fuck, she met Amanda! And I don’t mean, she knew Amanda casually or as a patient at her ward (‘cause, she did) I mean Jigsaw introduced “Mandy” to Jill as “proof“’” his work … worked. Oh, that’s a nice surprise too. We get more insight into Amanda’s time with Jigsaw. And we finally learn why she went apeshit in SAW III. Surprise… Hoffman blackmailed her.

Of course, it’s not a minor SAW twist if it’s not complicated so it turns out that Amanda, Jigsaw’s apprentice, actually is responsible for the death of Gideon, the son that Jill miscarried and the first domino to set him off.

Yup, Cecil, the angry drug addict from SAW IV was pushed into forcing his way into the clinic by Amanda. Amanda can’t cope with John knowing this, and Hoffman knows that. He wants control of the “Jigsaw mantel” so he can just sadistically people.

So the letter. It has another role in this movie. Finally. 3 movies later. We now know the contents implicated Amanda in the death of Gideon but… we also know that Jill now knows the contents of the letter.

A reporter is to thank for this, of course.

Jill gets to collect some stuff from Jigsaw’s will, most of it a mystery (including a mysterious clinic delivery of a package… which is how Dr. Gordon makes his return in SAW 3D’s final scenes). Part of this is also the instructions for the victims of the test William undergoes. Hoffman picks this up from her.

Jill starts to seem really cunning herself in this movie — something SAW 3D very quickly undoes by making her kind of “final girl” in that weird slasher film sequence where Hoffman plans to take revenge. We see her trick Hoffman and administer his test — she gets to do her husband’s job now. You see, Hoffman is convinced he won't’ be tested. Except there was another victim she was to plan for.

Hoffman.

He gets tested, and survives… though he’s not meant to as the letter has enraged Jill. She’s seeing his true colors, and doesn’t let him get access to the key, instead trapping in a room where he should’t be able to survive a streamlined, modern Reverse Bear Trap.

He manages to have it only go off a little bit, scarring him grossly and the movie ending.

Post credits scenes are the thing Marvel’s known for but SAW has done them. This movie does it! We see Amanda, mid SAW III, tell Jeff’s daughter not to trust the person who saves her. With the context of the letter, it’s clear Amanda knows that as bad as things are going to get for her… she can still fuck Hoffman over somehow.

The FBI plotline shows Hoffman having a somewhat pyrrhic victory over Agent Perez. He kills her, burns the building of the scene down, etc. but she implies suspicions are already cast on him. I don’t remember this really paying off on the FBI end in SAW 3D but we know the internal affairs dude who tries to stop Hoffman doesn’t seem to know about it.

SAW VI shows some major flaws in Jigsaw’s tests. Namely, a dude who learns his lesson dies because of an angry teenage boy. That’s expecting a lot from a teenager, and unfair to a dude who just got to literally choose who lives and who dies in a violent fashion. But it shows that Jigsaw’s wife taking on Hoffman could be an interesting endgame. It’s violence is weirdly … political and topical. Again, Obama was now president and healthcare was a big push for him. And American Healthcare IS FUCKED UP.

I realize, writing this and confusing points from V and 3D, that these are stupidly dense movies that seem only to thrive (for me) because they feed my addiction to overly complicated backstories. Seriously, when Kingdom Hearts III has a release date expect a similar ranking series.

It’s worth noting as well that this film felt more visually interesting at the time. SAW V felt bland beyond simply a boring plot that really just set up more stuff (such as what happens in this movie) then doing anything of its own. It’s a pity this movie killed an extra sequel in some ways. While this franchise was far beyond jumping the shark (well, maybe if there are like another 10 sharks or so) SAW 3D wrapped up too quickly, too messily and served nobody in the process.

But why was SAW VI a less than stellar performer (commercially) than it’s successor and predecessors?

HAUNTED HOUSES.

In 2009, a little movie, directed by a former software engineer at Sony’s MLB the Show series of games studio, was dealing with sleeping trouble. Crunch, making games… it does that to you. He turned it into a movie.

Paranormal Activity was the surprise hit of 2009, and the first franchise to come along to say “fuck this gore shit let’s make you jump out of your seat” and beat SAW at it’s “made for basically pocket change, reap millions” game.

I thought the first movie was boring and overhyped, personally. In fact, one of my friends fell asleep during it. The third movie would change my opinion on the series but, it was definitely a movie that benefitted from having an invested audience as part of the viewing experience — everyone screaming at a simple door moving is a cool thing to be a part of. SAW… didn’t have that. It was a novel concept that became a test of how strong your stomach was, in theatrical form. The combination of a fresh “Blair Witch but in a haunted suburban home” movie to go up against it and franchise fatigue worked against it. But if you can enjoy SAW IV or V you’ll like VI. It’s a diamond, or maybe like an amethyst, in the rough.

At this point there are only two films left — the first two in the series. SAW II is next. With only one film left after that (by most logic, that means the final film is the original) I will be taking a quick detour into a rant about how batshit insane this franchise’s mythos got from SAW III onwards. I will even talk about the prequel (non-canon) graphic novel, and the two Konami published videogames — SAW: The Game and SAW 2: Flesh and Blood.

The list so far:

1. SAW 3D: The Final Chapter
2. SAW V
3. SAW III
4. SAW IV
5. SAW VI
6. SAW II (next!)
7. ???

(Sorted from Worst to Best)